


They Say That in the Navy...

by madelinescribbles



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Navy, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Tucker is there in theory but isnt mentioned, and believe me there are plenty of shenanigans, blood gulch but taking place on two stranded heavily fortified battle cruisers, just an excuse for me to geek about the navy and write shenanigans, navy AU, not explicitly shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 01:46:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinescribbles/pseuds/madelinescribbles
Summary: You'd think the Red Navy would have noticed that a heavily fortified Ticonderoga cruiser was stranded in the ocean without propulsion for several months.It's ok. The Blue Navy has the same problem.





	They Say That in the Navy...

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I'm in NROTC, and the second the LT told me that Cruisers shoot glitter canyons as decoys for missiles, I had two immediate thoughts. 1) holy shit I chose the right career path and 2) that is the most donut thing I have ever heard. So I wrote this fic.

“GET UP AND GIVE ME 400!” boomed a voice over the ship’s pitching intercom.

 

In the basement of the cruiser, in a closet next to the furnace, the soldier for whom the intercom called rolled over on a naked boxspring mattress and covered his ear with a pillow.

 

“I know you're not up, you lazy dirtbag! You have five minutes to be on deck in combat reds or I throw your rations overboard and send Lopez to make you join ‘em!”

 

A voice from the background tittered faintly in the background over the intercom. “Sir, we need those rations. We don't know how much longer until command sends a supply ship, and it would be more effective to save—”

 

“Can it, Petty Officer Simmons! Grif now has two minutes to be on deck, or we throw  _all_  the rations overboard!”

 

“But sir, that doesn't even make sen—” The intercom cut out before Grif could hear the rest of Simmons’ reasonable and likely fruitless argument.

 

Grif sat up and stretched lazily. After a moment of deliberation, he decided it was better to give into Sarge’s senile demands rather than starve to death any faster than they already were, stranded in the middle of the fucking ocean. But only slightly; very, very, very slightly better than death. Microscopic slight. The slight was practically invisible.

 

Grif lazily slid into his “combat reds,” Sarge’s name for the standard red camouflage working uniform issued by the Navy, and began climbing the ladder out of the ship’s inner systems. He reached the top of the ladder and opened the hatch above him.

 

“Seaman Recruit Grif!” Sarge barked from across the deck before Grif had a chance to raise his head above the waterline, “You’re thirty seconds late!” He marched angrily across the ship with Simmons following nervously behind him. It vaguely reminded Grif of Smee trailing Captain Hook in  _Peter Pan_  and he stored the amusing thought to tell Donut later.

 

On second thought, bringing up any pure childhood memories around Donut was probably not the best idea unless he wanted to never think about them again.

 

“Maybe I wouldn't be so late if I didn't have to sleep in a fucking boiler room,” Grif mumbled as the two approached.

 

“You sleep in the boiler room because you don't make your bed to proper military standards!” Sarge shouted.

 

“Fuck military standards,” Grif finally pushed himself out of the hatch and flopped onto the deck, “We’ve been out here for almost a year without fuel or communications! Tell him, Simmons.”

 

Sarge turned to Simmons with a threatening glare and Simmons shifted uncomfortably. Grif should have known better than to ask Simmons to voice his opinion with a superior around.

 

“Hospital corners are an essential part of—”

 

“Shut up, Simmons,” Grif sighed as he stood up and began buttoning his blouse. About halfway down he realized they were all misaligned by one, but decided the uniform was a similar principle to the beds and didn't bother. Simmons visibly flinched when Grif pulled his hands away from the buttons without fixing them.

 

“Shut up, Simmons,” Grif said again.

 

“I didn't say anything!”

 

“Yeah, but you were going to.”

 

“I—”

 

“Shut it, Simmons!” Sarge interrupted. Simmons sighed and Grif flipped him off behind Sarge’s back when he turned around to scan the deck. “Where’s Seaman Donut?”

 

“Did someone say Seaman?” Sang a cheerful voice. Grif and Simmons grimaced in unison at the way Donut pronounced his rank. The door to the mess swung open and Donut stepped out with a huge smile on his face.

 

“Seaman Donut on deck, sir, ready to do my part to please Uncle Sam!”

 

Grif wasn’t sure what made him more sick, how enthusiastic Donut was to be stranded or the way he said it.

 

Sarge didn’t seem to have any such hangups.

 

“Thats the spirit, Donut! You two should be more like him.”

 

“I hope not,” said Simmons.

 

“God no,” said Grif.

 

“DETAIL, FALL IN!” Sarge ordered. All conversation forgotten, Donut and Simmons hurried into formation (which, after all the lifeboats and crew had mysteriously gone missing one night, really only consisted of a sad lineup of the three-remaining enlisted plus occasionally Lopez), and Grif fell in lazily beside them. The first two stood at attention while Grif stood contrappasto with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

 

Sarge paced back and forth as he addressed his detail.

 

“Men,—”

 

“Sir, the Sexual Equality Act legally restrains you from addressing a full detail as ‘men’ regardless of the gender rati—”

 

“Lock it up, Simmons! I’m briefing my men.” Sarge growled.

 

“Aye Aye, sir,” Simmons replied sadly.

 

“I prefer debriefings,” Donut commented.

 

“If you two make Grif my favorite by default, I will not hesitate to blow this ship out of the water with what remains of the ammunition.”

 

“Please do,” muttered Grif.

 

“Aye aye, sir,” Simmons and Donut said in unison.

 

“Now, as I was saying: Men, today we will achieve decisive victory over the Blue Navy once and for all. For you see, I have a plan that is nothing short of absolute tactical military genius!”

 

“Not this again,” Grif groaned, “You say this every week and we just end up boarding their ship, breaking a few crates of MREs that would be more useful taken back here, and then retreating when they start machine gunning our hull. It’s bullshit!”

 

“Normally I would have you thrown overboard for speaking such treacherous statements to your commanding officer, Seaman Recruit Grif-”

 

“You’re not a real officer,” Grif interjected. It was technically true. Sarge was enlisted Marine Corps, but he was the highest rank among them. He had used this as an excuse to demote Grif from a Petty Officer 3rd Class alongside Simmons to the lowest possible Naval rank. Even Lopez had a higher rank than him, and that guy wasn't even technically in the Navy.

 

“HOWEVER,” Sarge continued as if Grif never spoke, “this plan is so perfect that I will spare you, so that you may make your worthless life slightly meaningful by taking part in it.”

 

“Gee, thanks,” Grif muttered.

 

“Men, rather than board with the bridge, we are going to board… with a sneak attack!”

 

“A sneak attack, sir?” Simmons asked anxiously.

 

“It’s a fucking boat,” Grif said dryly, “Can't really get on it without the plank.”

 

“That’s not true!” Donut chirped, “We can use some rope and take ‘em from behind! Things might get a little wet, but that’s the fun part!”

 

Grif turned and stared at Simmons in a final attempt to find another sane person on the ship. “Did he just suggest we  _swim_  up to a heavily fortified battle cruiser?”

 

“Of course he didn’t!” Sarge bellowed, “I did!”

 

Much to Grif’s relief, Simmons did seem to have some sanity left.

 

“Sir, I don't think that plan will work very well. If we have to retreat, there’s no guarantee we could make it back to the ship without—”

 

“Can it, Simmons!”

 

“Aye Aye, sir.”

 

Fuck.

 

“Then we’re all in agreement!” Sarge nodded and placed his hands on his hips, satisfied.

 

* * *

 

Simmons knew Grif had never been a particularly strong swimmer. Sure, he managed to pass a 2nd class swim test every year, but only because the people distributing it tended to be pretty lenient with what classified as “sidestroke.” His favorite portion had always been the dead-man’s float, where they had to float face down in the water for five minutes without moving. One year, Simmons remembers, Grif had fallen asleep during it and no one really noticed that he had sunk to the bottom of the pool until a female Ensign in the next testing group started shrieking about a dead homeless man in the water.

 

So about an hour later, when Simmons watched some lady he had never seen before, fully clad in SEAL stealth gear, shoot Grif in the stomach and kick him over the edge of the Blues’ ship, he didn’t even think twice about diving after him.

 

That was a bad idea for a number of reasons. First, the distance from the deck to the waterline on a Ticonderoga cruiser? Higher than you would think. And Simmons didn’t exactly dive as much as he belly-flopped, resulting in an obscene smack that would make Satan blush and a burn he could feel through his R-dub blouse.

 

Second, after he managed to drag an unconscious, heavily-bleeding Grif up by the collar of his frustratingly mis-buttoned uniform, there was the fact that there was no way to get an unconscious body of that size back on the ship without lowering a lifeboat and hoisting him back up. So Simmons was going to be holding Grif for a while.

 

Third, saving Grif wasn’t exactly the best way to get on Sarge’s good side, and Simmons was starting to worry that he’d have to wait until Sarge went to bed so that Donut could rescue them without being murdered.

 

“Why, Simmons?” Sarge wailed, “He could have been just another casualty! Now his blood’s all over yer uniform, and it may be red but the blood dries brown! Trust me! They’ll investigate for sure!”

 

Simmons didn’t want to know why Sarge knew so much about the effects of blood on the uniforms they never wore in combat (because, like, red isn’t exactly subtle), so instead he made a weird choked whining noise that could be interpreted either as fear or as his body reacting to the prolonged strain of carrying Grif.

 

Luckily, Sarge didn’t push anyone overboard as Donut and Lopez lowered a life boat for the two of them to climb into.

 

On his way up, Simmons tried not to think too hard about why he was so eager to save Grif.

 

* * *

 

A week or so after the accident, Simmons had essentially been playing nurse to Grif.

 

Not like that! That would be gay! No one’s gay here! Except Donut. There’s nothing wrong with being gay! But Simmons isn’t gay, and he definitely wasn’t roleplaying with Grif.

 

Yeah.

 

For the most part, Simmons sat on a tiny chair in Grif’s shitty boiler room when he had nothing better to do. Brought him meals, changed his bandage every now and then, and basically did the same thing that they did when they were on watch together; hold highly stimulating academic conversation.

 

“Nuh-uh,” Simmons said.

 

“Uh-huh,” Grif insisted.

 

“Oh, shut up!”

 

“Seriously, dude!”

 

“Nah, nah, no way!”

 

“Yeah, way.”

 

“Dude.”

 

“Dude.”

 

“Dude!”

 

“Dude.”

 

“Dude!”

 

“Yeah, dude.”

 

“Wow,” Simmons breathed in awe, “I can’t believe it. It was an inside job.”

 

“Hard to believe, right? But it’s true.”

 

“Wait a second!” Simmons put closed the book he had given up on reading a while ago, “Why would the Admiral  _need_  a penis to be drawn in the sky?”

 

“I told you, dude! For-”

 

Suddenly the emergency sirens flicked on, spinning and painting the walls red, the alarm screeching in earsplitting sets of 3. Sarge’s voice shouted over the intercom.

 

“BATTLE STATIONS, MEN! INCOMING HOSTILE MISSILES! ALL HANDS ON DECK! FLY THE NATIONAL ENSIGN!”

 

Simmons leapt to his feet in panic, the folding chair he had been sitting on next to Grif’s mattress flying backwards and toppling over. Grif groaned at the disturbance and rolled over, pulling his sheets over his head to block out the noise and flashing lights.

 

“Get up, fatass! You really want to spend our final minutes alive on that disgusting mattress?”

 

Grif groaned.

 

Simmons scowled and attempted to push him off the bed, but his inertia was just too damn high. He managed to move the fat lard about half a foot before he rolled back over and undid the progress.

 

“Siiiiiimmooooons,” Grif complained, “Just ignore it. It’ll go away.”

 

“When we’re all fucking dead!” his voice cracked.

 

Grif sat up, genuinely annoyed.

 

“No. I am willing to bet an entire month’s rations – full rations, not the pitiful bullshit we’ve resorted to – that we will live to hear that damn siren cut off, and we literally don’t have to do anything about it.”

 

“Grif, come on! I’m not dying in your shitty boiler room!”

 

“I’m serious, Simmons! Think. What happened the last time Sarge put the ship on red alert?”

 

Simmons was silent. The alarms continued to shriek. He twitched.

 

“Well?”

 

“It was a test,” he said reluctantly.

 

“You’re damn right. And the time before that?”

 

“Church pushed Caboose into the water and he accidentally climbed onto our ship.”

 

“And what about the time before that, Simmons?”

 

“A bird dove too close to the bridge.”

 

“Exactly. So why the  _fuck_  would I want to leave my bed less than 3 days after I was almost shot and drowned to death, only to be told that my reaction time was too slow to save us from whatever bout of senility caught Sarge’s fancy this week?”

 

“…I see your point.”

 

“Right. So, sit the fuck down right now and stop worrying. He and Donut will push a few buttons, break something, then realize there’s no danger. This shit will stop, with or without us, and I can go back to laying in bed without bleeding out on the deck first.”

 

Visibly distraught but ultimately convinced, Simmons cautiously lifted his chair and sat back down.

 

Donut’s voice crackled from the loudspeaker, “Simmons! Grif! Where are you? Oh my god, this looks bad!”

 

Simmons tensed, ready to spring into action once again. He glanced at Grif through the corner of his eye.

 

“Simmons, don’t you dare,” Grif warned.

 

“I think it’s a Tomahawk!” Donut says overhead.

 

Simmons turns his body to stare at Grif, eyes wide and alarmed.

 

“Simmons-”

 

“Lopez, you’re the smartest person on the ship – help me calculate how much time we have left to stop them.”

 

Simmons’ fear immediately turned to anger and he vaulted out of the chair up the ladder.

 

“Fuck me,” Grif sighed and rolled back over.

 

“I’M THE SMARTEST PERSON AROUND HERE, DONUT!” Simmons shouted as he scrambled out of the hatch and onto the deck.

 

He spotted Sarge at the bow, standing at a perfect parade rest, staring at the horizon line in the distance.

 

“There it is, son,” he whispered as Simmons approached, “The deadly artillery that could take us out in seconds.”

 

Simmons traced his gaze, scanning the skyline for a missile head zooming towards them at Mach 3. But he didn’t see one. Instead, he saw a faint smoke trail, barely visible in the distance and quickly fading, shooting straight up before arching lazily downward and tapering off quickly.

 

 _Fuck me,_  Simmons thought.  _Grif was right._

 

But more importantly, they weren’t going to be stranded in the middle of the ocean any longer.

 

“Sir, that’s not a missile. That’s… that’s a rescue flare! From a hand-held flare gun! That’s a person!”

 

“Don’t be stupid, Petty Officer Simmons. It’s going to kill us all unless we kill it first with our superior technology! Donut, prepare the CIWS to hard kill that missile in a blaze of red glory!”

 

“Sir, you know I never have any trouble with hard things,” Donut informed, “But all of our hard kill missile defenses were used in the last attack.”

 

“Which was also not an actual attack,” Simmons sighed under his breath.

 

“Gah! Horse putty! Seaman Donut, I want you to set off all our soft kill defenses at once, so that the combined softness will compact into nothing short of a hard kill!”

 

“Aye Aye, sir! This soft stuff is about to get so hard!” Donut exclaimed as he ran off to launch the defenses.

 

“Wait, sir, we only have 4 rounds of chaff left so-”

 

“So we’ll have to hit them with all we’ve got! Exactly, Officer Simmons!”

 

“No! The smoke trail from your ‘missile’ is just a flare! From a person! A person who might know if there’s land nearby! You have to listen to me!”

 

Sarge growled.

 

“Uh, Sir!” Simmons tacked on with a squeak.

 

“Simmons, I don’t know what’s been going on in that head of yours since you’ve been spending so much time with that lazy dirtbag-”

 

“YO SIMMONS YOU DEAD YET? OR AM I EATING THE GOOD KUSH FOR A MONTH?” Grif shouted, sticking his head up from the ladder at the  _worst_  possible time.

 

“Shut up, Grif!” Simmons yelped.

 

“GRIF, YOU LAZY BASTARD, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE LIKE PANSIES IN A LONG-RANGE HELLFIRE BECAUSE OF YOUR LAZINESS!”

 

“Ohhhoho hell no! Don’t pin this bullshit on me! You can fuck off with that old man, because the way I see it, either you’re a senile coot and I can rub it in your face when we all live despite your bullshit, or you were right and the last thing I see before we all die is the look on your face when I tell you to suck my fat cock in hell one last time!”

 

“Grif, you idiot!” Simmons choked.

 

“GRIF, YOU DIRTBAG!” Sarge fumed.

 

 _“I reap only benefits from this situation,”_  Lopez commented somewhere.

 

“HEY!” Church called from the railing of the blue ship, “DID YOU GUYS SEE THAT-”

 

“FIRE!”

 

The ship suddenly gave a violent jolt as Donut launched 4 rounds of chaff at once, assaulting the atmosphere with glitter.

 

“I DIE HOW I LIVED!” Donut screamed from the cannon deck, suddenly wearing nothing but a pink speedo and standing arms outstretched towards the sky, chin up, eyes closed, as the wind rained sparkles onto the ship. His body was covered in chaff glitter and looked suspiciously oiled.

 

“Yeah, I’ll just… leave you to it then,” Church backed away from the railing and descended back into the blue ship.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Every single kudos and comment is read and gushed over excessively for maximum appreciation.


End file.
